text:
Obviously, people blink in order to lubricate their eyes. But that can't be the only reason. We blink far more often than simple moistening obligations would require. Plus, we seem to blink most at attention break points—at the ends of written sentences or during pauses in speech. This makes sense if you consider that each blink causes a momentary black-out of our visual system. We're blinking at times when we'll miss the least amount of information. Or are we looking at things the wrong way around? Researchers led by Tamami Nakano of Osaka University showed that eyeblinks actually cause attention disengagement rather than occurring after we've already briefly disengaged.
In particular, the researchers were interested in two regions of the brain: the dorsal attention network, which controls where we focus our attention, and the default-mode network (DMN), which counteracts the dorsal attention network and is involved in introspection. They placed ten healthy volunteers in an fMRI while the subjects watched scenes from a TV show (Mr. Bean). The subjects blinked an average of 17.4 times per minute. They compared brain activity during the spontaneous blinks to activity when the subjects were not blinking and to moments when the screen was physically blacked out for the same duration and frequency as normal eyeblinks.
Nakano T, Kato M, Morito Y, Itoi S, & Kitazawa S (2012). Blink-related momentary activation of the default mode network while viewing videos. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America PMID: 23267078.


text:
Adjustable Backplate
Body shaped backplate for support. Can be adjusted in three different positions to fit different body sizes.
Pivoting Shoulder Straps
The shoulder straps follow the movements of the shoulders and gives an improved weight distribution.
Adjustable Chestplate
Adjustable chest plate in two different positions. In lower position the load is transferred from the shoulders to the hip, and the pressure over the chest is reduced. The reduced pressure over the chest is an important benefit for women.
Hip Pad
The shock absorbing hip pad will protect the hip from strain, and help the user to work easier and with large room for movement.
Ergo Fit 5/5
Ergonomically designed.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
MUIRO announces DAAD Research Grants-Doctoral Programmes in Germany
- On 09 August 2018
- Hits: 5334
MUIRO announces DAAD Research Grants-Doctoral Programmes in Germany
Call for application: 1st August 2018
Deadline: 31st August 2018
The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) is pleased to announce the Research Grants-Doctoral Programmes in Germany for the academic year 2019/2020.Adidas Predator Accelerator
The doctoral Program is provided to excellently-qualified young academics and scientists who have completed a Master's degree or Diplom, or in exceptional cases a Bachelor's degree at the latest by the time they begin their grant-supported research.
The target groups are Egyptian freelancers, applicants from Egyptian ministries, Egyptian university staff member of the private universities and private research institutions, university staff members of Egyptian public universities, who are not following the mission's department plan. (For details about the missions' plan please refer to the following website of Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research for the missions' plan: http://www.mohe-casm.edu.eg)
The aim of this grant programme is to support doctoral projects in Germany.
Kindly note, that the deadline for application is 31st August 2018. The application should be online through the DAAD portal.
You can find detailed information about this scholarship starting from 1st August 2018 under the following link:


text: pcr 0 Posted October 16, 2013 Report Share Posted October 16, 2013 Hi I am a newbie with a history of handbuilding on and off over the last 20 years. The elements where I live are much hotter and windier than where I use to live and I'm finding it challenging to keep my pieces leather hard. I want to keep them in the leather hard stage longer so that I can do both surface decorations with stencils/screens etc. Some of these pieces are containers and I want to be able to cut into them to make lids and flanges. I can't get to these pieces every day and they are drying out too much inbetween. I wrap them in plastic and put them in an outdoor closet under stairs. Any and all suggestions that would help extend the leatherhard stage would be appreciated. Thank you. Link to post Share on other sites


text:
(a) COMMON FINANCIAL AID FORM DEVELOPMENT- Section 483(a) (20 U.S.C. 1090(a)) is amended--
(1) in the subsection heading, by striking `FORM' and inserting `FORM DEVELOPMENT';
(2) in paragraph (1)--
(A) by striking `A, C, D, and E' and inserting `A through E';
(B) by striking `and to determine the need of a student for the purpose of part B of this title';
(C) by striking the second sentence and inserting the following: `The Secretary shall include on the form developed under this subsection such data items as the Secretary determines are appropriate for inclusion. Such items shall be selected in consultation with States to assist in the awarding of State financial assistance. In no case shall the number of such data items be less than the number included on the form on the date of enactment of the Higher Education Amendments of 1998.'; and
(D) by striking the last sentence;
(3) in paragraph (2)--
(A) by striking `A, C, D, and E' each place the term appears and inserting `A through E';
(B) by striking `and the need of a student for the purpose of part B of this title,'; and
(C) by striking `or have the student's need established for the purpose of part B of this title';
(4) by amending paragraph (3) to read as follows:
`(3) DISTRIBUTION OF DATA- Institutions of higher education, guaranty agencies, and States shall receive, without charge, the data collected by the Secretary using the form developed pursuant to this section for the purposes of processing loan applications and determining need and eligibility for institutional and State financial aid awards. Entities designated by institutions of higher education, guaranty agencies, or States to receive such data shall be subject to all the requirements of this section, unless such requirements are waived by the Secretary.';
(5) by adding at the end the following:
`(5) ELECTRONIC FORMS- (A) The Secretary, in cooperation with representatives of agencies and organizations involved in student financial assistance, including private computer software providers, shall develop an electronic version of the form described in paragraph (1). As permitted by the Secretary, such an electronic version shall not require a signature to be collected at the time such version is submitted, if a signature is subsequently submitted by the applicant. The Secretary shall prescribe such version not later than 120 days after the date of enactment of the Higher Education Amendments of 1998.
`(B) Nothing in this section shall be construed to prohibit the use of the form developed by the Secretary pursuant to subparagraph (A) by an eligible institution, eligible lender, guaranty agency, State grant agency, private computer software providers, a consortium thereof, or such other entities as the Secretary may designate.
`(C) No fee shall be charged to students in connection with the use of the electronic version of the form, or of any other electronic forms used in conjunction with such form in applying for Federal or State student financial assistance.
`(D) The Secretary shall ensure that data collection complies with section 552a of title 5, United States Code, and that any entity using the electronic version of the form developed by the Secretary pursuant to subparagraph (A) shall maintain reasonable and appropriate administrative, technical, and physical safeguards to ensure the integrity and confidentiality of the information, and to protect against security threats, or unauthorized uses or disclosures of the information provided on the electronic version of the form. Data collected by such version of the form shall be used only for the application, award, and administration of aid awarded under this title, State aid, or aid awarded by eligible institutions or such entities as the Secretary may designate. No data collected by such version of the form shall be used for making final aid awards under this title until such data have been processed by the Secretary or a contractor or designee of the Secretary.
`(6) THIRD PARTY SERVICERS AND PRIVATE SOFTWARE PROVIDERS- To the extent practicable and in a timely manner, the Secretary shall provide, to private organizations and consortia that develop software used by eligible institutions for the administration of funds under this title, all the necessary specifications that the organizations and consortia must meet for the software the organizations and consortia develop, produce, and distribute (including any diskette, modem, or network communications) which are so used. The specifications shall contain record layouts for required data. The Secretary shall develop in advance of each processing cycle an annual schedule for providing such specifications. The Secretary, to the extent practicable, shall use means of providing such specifications, including conferences and other meetings, outreach, and technical support mechanisms (such as training and printed reference materials). The Secretary shall, from time to time, solicit from such organizations and consortia means of improving the support provided by the Secretary.
`(7) PARENT'S SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER AND BIRTH DATE- The Secretary is authorized to include on the form developed under this subsection space for the social security number and birth date of parents of dependent students seeking financial assistance under this title.'.
(b) STREAMLINED REAPPLICATION PROCESS- Section 483(b)(1) is amended by striking `, within 240 days' and all that follows through `of 1992,'.
(c) INFORMATION TO COMMITTEES- Section 483(c) is amended by striking `and Labor' and inserting `and the Workforce'.
(d) TOLL-FREE INFORMATION- Section 483(d) is amended by striking `section 633(c)' and inserting `section 685(d)(2)(C)'.
(e) REPEAL- Subsection (f) of section 483 is repealed.
|Table of Contents


text:
Shuttle Endeavour hitches a ride with S.A. truck
Workers from the Toyota plant in San Antonio celebrated their role in making the Tundra pickup that overnight helped tow the space shuttle Endeavour to its final home in Los Angeles.
Beginning early Friday, the 11-year-old Endeavour began its two-day, 12-mile trip to retirement from the Los Angeles International Airport to the California Space Center, where it will go on display. As it crawled along L.A.'s streets late Friday, a San Antonio-built 2012 Tundra CrewMax half-ton pickup hauled the 170,000-pound spacecraft for nearly a quarter-mile over the Interstate 405 on the Manchester Boulevard bridge.
And four of the people who built it were there to cheer it on.
"It becomes more surreal when you see the shuttle," said Mario Lozoya, a manager at the San Antonio plant, which manufacturers every Tundra that Toyota Motor Corp. sells across the globe. "You start understanding the impact of this historic event.
"It's very exciting to see the Tundra, a product that is made by San Antonians, put a piece of American history into the science center."
Organizers last week adjusted their original plans for the truck to tow the shuttle during the final leg of its journey, putting its role earlier in the lineup.
Lozoya and three of his coworkers, including one who works on the production line and another in the paint department, had a prime view on Manchester Boulevard as the truck towed the Endeavour, its side weathered by millions of miles in space and two-dozen re-entries.
"That site (was) exactly where our Tundra (took) over," Lozoya said. "We're really proud, because we know it can do the job, because we know what kind of product we make."
But the folks back in San Antonio weren't forgotten. They were getting hourly updates at the plant as the event unfolded.
The baby of the shuttle fleet, Endeavour replaced Challenger, which exploded during liftoff in 1986, killing seven astronauts. It thundered off the launch pad 25 times, orbited Earth nearly 4,700 times and racked up 123 million miles.
As part of the so-called Mission 26: The Big Endeavour, the Tundra underwent extensive testing to develop a dolly specifically for hauling the shuttle. The pickup received no additional modifications to increase towing capacity or generate more power, Toyota said.
Transported on a 160-wheeled carrier, Endeavour made several stops Friday as crews checked its balance, pruned trees in its path and worked to widen the carrier so that it could straddle a road median. Workers later transferred the shuttle to the special dolly designed to cross over the busy Interstate 405 at night.
While San Antonians might be proud of "their" truck pulling the shuttle, the decision to include a foreign automaker in the shuttle's retirement offended some.
When Toyota announced the Tundra's involvement last month, Michigan Republicans criticized President Barack Obama for offering the Japan-based company such a prime spot.
"A symbol of American greatness will be towed to its final resting place by a foreign competitor, forever cementing the image of a Toyota truck towing a retired space shuttle," Matt Frendewey, director of communications for the Michigan Republican Party, told the Detroit News. "The symbolism of this PR stunt should be offensive to every red-blooded American with vested interest in the success of the U.S. automotive industry."
Frendewey did not return requests for comment, but Toyota and its defenders asserted the Tundra is an American vehicle.
At 75 percent, the San Antonio-made Tundra tied with the Ford F-150 for the highest content of U.S. or Canada parts in the full-sized pickup truck segment, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
"It's definitely symbolic that the Toyota truck will be towing this American icon," said Nancy McLernon, president and CEO of the Organization for International Investment, or OFII. "We're well on the road to having those knee-jerk reactions (like Frendewey's) minimized."
Her group, whose members include Toyota and nine other foreign automakers, lobbies for nondiscriminatory treatment of foreign-based companies that operate in the U.S. According to OFII, foreign companies' subsidiaries represent about 1 percent of U.S. businesses but employ 5 percent of the workforce, pay 17 percent of corporate taxes and manufacture 20 percent of American exports.
Formed in 1990, OFII has witnessed a drastic change from an environment that McLernon described as, at worst, suspicious toward foreign companies and neutral at best.
Now, Americans like Lozoya "feel better about working for foreign-owned companies, because there is stronger recognition that these companies operating here are good for the U.S.," McLernon said. "Having the Toyota Tundra pull (the Endeavour) is a fabulous recognition ... that global automakers are an important part of the American success story."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.


text:
|Supported games:
|Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Grand Theft Auto IV
|Short description:
|Create a culling zone
|IPL Sections:
CULL is a section in the IPL file. It is used to create zones with different behaviour like mirrors [1] or fixed camera positions. It can also influence the environment like disable rain within the zone and certain police behaviors.
GTA III / Vice City
Cull zones in GTA III and Vice City are built by a box which is controlled by various flags[2]. By default, most of the cull zones are located in
data\maps\cull.ipl for both games.
CenterX, CenterY, CenterZ, LowerLeftX, LowerLeftY, LowerLeftZ, UpperRightX, UpperRightY, UpperRightZ, Flags, Unknown
|A point which defines the center of the box in real world coordinates
Useless? Doesn't seem to affect the zone.
|A point which corresponds to the lower left corner of the box.
|A point which corresponds to the upper right corner of the box.
|The behaviour of the cull zone – see below.
|Always 0
The first three parameters are odd since placing any values do not have an effect on the zone. They seem to act like identifiers rather than functions.
Flags are numbers which are build out of a collection of numbers formed by the power of 2-numbers lower than 230. Some are defining various behaviours of the zone. They can be combined by simply adding one flag value to another (see binary to decimal conversion).
|Enables all flags.
|Camera close in into player using closest third-person view camera mode, does not close in if in first person or cinematic mode, camera mode cannot be changed while in the zone
|camera remotely placed outside the zone, no control of camera, camera mode cannot be changed while in the zone
|Lowers the camera angle on boats
|Rain-free, police helicopter-free zone
|Police will not exit their vehicles voluntarily. They will only exit if you do something to them (like shoot it). Cops both on foot and in vehicles will not chase you but can shoot at you.
|Police will always exit their vehicles once they are spawned ONLY IF you have a wanted level. If you don't, they'll drive normally.
|Some visual water effects are removed like the transparent waves and sparkles on the water (like the water in GTA III).
San Andreas
GTA San Andreas has two different major formats in the game:
CenterX, CenterY, CenterZ, Unknown1, WidthY, BottomZ, WidthX, Unknown2, TopZ, Flag, Unknown3
CenterX, CenterY, CenterZ, Unknown1, WidthY, BottomZ, WidthX, Unknown2, TopZ, Flag, Vx, Vy, Vz, Cm
Coordinates are always rounded to the nearest world unit so that they are no longer floating point values, they are non-decimal integers.
Not all flags from the previous game are compatible with San Andreas.
|Enables all flags.
|Camera close in into player using closest third-person view camera mode, does not close in if in first person or cinematic mode, camera mode cannot be changed while in the zone
|camera remotely placed outside the zone, no control of camera, camera mode cannot be changed while in the zone
|Rain-free, police helicopter-free zone
|5-star military zone
See also
This page is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation Licence. This page has a separate license to the CC-BY-SA that applies to most of GTA Wiki.
The full text of the GNU FDL v1.2 is here. Click the "History" button to see the full list of authors. See GTA Wiki:Copyright for more detail on our copyright policy.
|IMG | DFF | TXD | IDE | GXT | Handling | Carcols | Dynamic Object
|Hot Coffee Modification | Create a Mission
|Game Files
|Animviewer.dat/GTAVC | Bink | Default.dat/GTAVC | Chassis Vlo | Fistfite.dat/GTAVC | Flight.dat | Gta vc.dat | Object.dat/GTAVC | OpenGTA2 |Particle.cfg/GTAVC | Particle (SA) | Paths | Ped.dat/GTAVC | Pedgrp.dat/GTAVC | Pedstats.dat/GTAVC | Scenarios.dat | Scripted Path | Surface.dat/GTAVC | Surfaud.dat | TimeCyc Definition | Timecyc.dat/GTAVC | Train.dat/GTAVC | Train.dat/GTAVC | Train.dat/GTAVC | Train2.dat/GTAVC | WAD | WBD-WBN | WPFL | Water.dat | Water.dat/GTAVC | Weapon.dat/GTAVC Weaponinfo.xml
|Multi Theft Auto, Vice City Multiplayer, San Andreas Multiplayer


text:
Lotus to test double-nosed E22 on Friday
Lotus will not wait until the next official test in Bahrain to get its delayed 2014 car on track.
Having not attended the first test at Jerez, the Enstone team will give its E22 a track debut this Friday and Saturday at the southern Spanish circuit, Italy's Autosprint reports.
Officially, the Lotus outing at Jerez will be for promotional 'filming days' on demonstration Pirelli tyres, allowed under the rules regulating the sport's strict limits on track testing.
But correspondent Roberto Chinchero said the session will actually be a crucial outing for engine supplier Renault, following the Jerez test debacle.
It will also be the first time Lotus' novel asymmetrical, double-pronged nose solution sees the light of day.
Other stories for FEBRUARY 5, 2014


text:
Welcome to the SPARC Open Access Newsletter, issue #108
April 2, 2007
by Peter Suber
Read this issue online
SOAN is published and sponsored by the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC).
Additional support is provided by Data Conversion Laboratory (DCL), experts in converting research documents to XML.
Paying for green open access
Two announcements in March showed that some publishers want to charge for OA archiving and at least one foundation is willing to pay for it. Neither amounts to a trend, but both could slow the progress of green OA, either by the direct imposition of new and needless costs or by confusing policy-makers about the economics of green OA.
First the American Chemical Society (ACS) re-announced its hybrid journal program, AuthorChoice, and reminded us that authors who wish to self-archive must pay the AuthorChoice fee. Then Elsevier and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) agreed that when an HHMI-funded author publishes in an Elsevier journal, HHMI will pay Elsevier a fee to deposit the peer-reviewed postprint in PubMed Central six months after publication. Here's a closer look at each policy.
* The ACS AuthorChoice program
ACS first announced AuthorChoice in August 2006 and re-announced it in March 2007. I looked for a change in the policy that might explain the second announcement but couldn't find one. Perhaps the uptake was lower than ACS expected. Perhaps it simply wanted to remind people of something it feared was being overlooked. (I know the feeling.)
ACS press release announcing AuthorChoice, August 14, 2006
ACS press release re-announcing AuthorChoice, undated but c. March 6, 2007
To review AuthorChoice, I'll draw on my nine questions for hybrid journal programs from SOAN for September 2006
Of the nine, the ACS gives a good and welcome answer to just one: it will let authors deposit articles in repositories independent of the ACS. It gives unwelcome answers to three more: it does not let participating authors retain copyright; it does not promise to reduce its subscription prices in proportion to author uptake (hence using the double-charge business model); and it will charge its AuthorChoice fee even to authors who want to self-archive. It leaves us uncertain on the remainder: Will it let participating authors use OA-friendly licenses? Will it waive fees in cases of economic hardship? Will it force authors to pay the fee if they want to comply with a prior funding contract mandating deposit in an OA repository? Will it lay page charges on top of the new AuthorChoice fee?
The ACS was not a green publisher before adopting AuthorChoice. Hence, its current position, disallowing no-fee, no-embargo self-archiving, is not a retreat.
Nor is the ACS first publisher to charge a fee for self-archiving. About a week before the ACS announced AuthorChoice, Wiley announced its hybrid program, Funded Access, which has the same effect. However, the ACS is the second, and so far Wiley and the ACS seem to be alone in this category.
Wiley charges $3,000 for OA archiving and deposits the published edition immediately upon publication. The ACS charges the same fee for the same benefit, but also offers discounts for ACS members and those affiliated with institutions subscribing to ACS journals.
At both publishers, these fees pay for gold OA, and I should make clear that I have no objection to charging for gold OA. On the contrary; if we are to have it, we must pay for it (through author-side publication fees, institutional subsidies, or some other way). However, I do object to charging for gold OA when authors only want green OA. It's like offering a car with a free bicycle to people who only want to buy a bicycle.
(BTW, by "green OA" I mean OA through a repository and by "gold OA" I mean OA through a journal. Gold OA includes peer review and green OA does not. Gold OA begins at the moment of publication and applies to the published edition of an article. Green OA is sometimes immediate, sometimes delayed, and can apply to any version of an article: a preprint, the published edition of the postprint, or the peer-reviewed but not copy-edited version of the postprint.)
As the ACS policy is currently worded, it only charges the fee for self-archiving the published edition of an article. Hence it leaves the door open for no-fee self-archiving of the final version of their peer-reviewed manuscript, rather than the published edition. On the American Scientist Open Access Forum, Stevan Harnad asked whether ACS planned to charge for that form of self-archiving as well. Adam Chesler, the ACS Assistant Director Sales and Library Relations, said yes.
Chesler's answer makes the ACS policy even worse than it seemed at first. It's bad enough to force authors to pay for gold OA in order to get green OA; at least they really get gold OA too, wanted or not. But under this new wrinkle in the policy, even self-archiving authors who don't get gold OA must pay for it.
Wiley's Funded Access journal program, announced August 6, 2006
Scott Jaschik, Momentum for Open Access Research, Inside Higher Ed, September 6, 2006. ("Dean Smith, vice president for sales and marketing for the [ACS],...made it clear that while his group is moving a bit in the direction of open access, it doesn't like the movement.")
Stevan Harnad, Trojan Horse from American Chemical Society: Caveat Emptor, Open Access Archivangelism, March 6, 2007.
Adam Chesler, ACS Author Choice Program, a post to the American Scientist Open Access Forum, March 8, 2007. (Chesler makes clear that ACS does not allow no-fee self-archiving even of the final version of the author's peer-reviewed manuscript
* The HHMI-Elsevier deal
The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) is similar in many ways to the Wellcome Trust (WT), although it has kept a lower profile in the OA debates. The WT is the largest private funder of medical research in the UK, and the HHMI is, or was, the largest private funder of medical research in the US. (I haven't seen recent figures but HHMI might have been overtaken by the Gates Foundation.) HHMI agreed long ago to pay publication fees at fee-based OA journals, and may have been the first funder anywhere to do so. With PLoS, it convened the 2003 meeting that produced the Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing. Now it's about to adopt an OA archiving mandate for HHMI-funded research.
The WT OA mandate requires deposit in PubMed Central (or its UK equivalent, UK PMC) and the forthcoming HHMI mandate will do the same. However, Elsevier allows OA archiving only through the author's personal web site or institutional repository. That's why HHMI and Elsevier first sat down to talk.
If neither side revised its policies, then HHMI-funded authors would have to shun Elsevier journals and Elsevier journals would have to shun HHMI-funded authors. Both organizations would gain from a compromise. But unfortunately that fact alone didn't determine which side had to budge. In this case, it was HHMI and it caved. It's a shame because it had considerably more bargaining power than Elsevier.
Elsevier already gives blanket permission for self-archiving in institutional repositories and could easily have added PubMed Central to the list of eligible destinations. For this purpose, the distinction between institutional repositories (IRs) and PubMed Central (PMC) is arbitrary. In openness, interoperability, and visibility to search engines, they are equivalent. If a PMC deposit hurts Elsevier, so does an IR deposit. If an IR deposit is harmless for Elsevier, so is a PMC deposit. Elsevier could have adapted to HHMI without incurring any new costs or risks. Instead, HHMI paid it to adapt.
HHMI will pay Elsevier
$1,500$1,000 for each article published in a Cell Press journal and $1,000$1,500 for each article in any other Elsevier journal.
BTW, before anyone writes in, I know that for several other purposes, IRs and PMC are *not* equivalent. One of the chief differences is that PMC, like arXiv, dominates research in its field and attracts many readers directly, not just through external search engines. Another is that, unlike nearly every other OA repository, PMC provides extensive enhancements to deposited manuscripts before it disseminates them. I discussed these enhancements in SOAN for August and September 2005.
What if HHMI had stood firm and said that HHMI-funded authors could not publish in Elsevier journals until Elsevier allowed deposits in PMC on the same terms it used for deposits in IRs? Even if Elsevier wanted to sweeten the deal, it would have to admit that accommodating HHMI would be a bargain: it would lose nothing and become eligible to publish the high-quality research produced by HHMI-funded scientists. If Elsevier bluffed and argued that PMC deposits would increase the risk of journal cancellations above the risk from IR deposits, then it might have won an extra concession from HHMI --for example, delaying PMC deposits until six months after publication. If Elsevier bluffed again, it might have won yet another concession --for example, depositing only the final version of the author's peer-reviewed manuscript rather than the published edition. In fact, HHMI gave Elsevier everything: payment *and* the six month embargo *and* deposit of an unedited version of the manuscript.
Elsevier could have permitted deposits in PMC straightaway; but it seems that HHMI could just as easily have required its grantees to deposit their postprints in their own IRs, rather than PMC. The snag there, unfortunately, is that not all HHMI grantees work at institutions with IRs. Hence, HHMI had good reason to call Elsevier's bluff.
HHMI could also have launched its own repository and deposited the articles itself. That would insure that the deposits took place and save on the expense. Then HHMI could invite PMC to harvest articles from the HHMI repository. However, the negotiation and outcome would have been virtually identical. Elsevier would still have agree to deposits in the HHMI repository; and while it would still face no new costs or risks, it would still have the same array of (apparently effective) bargaining gambits and the same incentive to play them.
HHMI wanted more than deposits in PMC. It also wanted to guarantee deposit and not leave it to the initiative of authors. That makes good sense, since authors are all too often overworked and preoccupied.
However, deposit in a repository is a clerical task whose cost is negligible. Les Carr and Stevan Harnad studied two months of log activity at a busy repository and found that the average deposit takes 10 minutes.
Alma Swan and Sheridan Brown found that even for authors new to self-archiving, few had trouble with their first deposit and even fewer had trouble with subsequent deposits.
The job is not worth thousands of dollars per paper, or hundreds, or even tens. If the physical job of depositing papers is really what HHMI wanted, it should have put the job up for bidding. It could have gotten a much better deal.
Elsevier will undoubtedly deposit 100% of the papers that HHMI pays it to deposit. But before PMC provides OA to deposited articles, it reformats them according to its DTD, adds links to various OA databases, and asks the author to verify the correctness of the result. More than half the time, NIH-funded authors don't respond to these queries, thwarting OA at the final step. So even after paying high fees for deposit, and getting a 100% deposit rate for its money, HHMI may get a significantly lower final rate of OA.
WT avoids this problem by insisting that publishers deposit the same XML that produced the print and online editions, making it unnecessary to verify correctness with the author. But for HHMI to adopt the same solution, it would have to insist that Elsevier deposit the published edition, not just the final version of the author's peer-reviewed manuscript. Imagine that: two birds with one stone.
It matters that there's slippage between PMC deposits and PMC OA. The only upside to the HHMI-Elsevier deal is more OA peer-reviewed articles reporting HHMI-funded research (even if embargoed and even if not the published editions). But how much more OA will HHMI actually get from this deal? The rate is likely to be worse than 100% and better than the background rate of spontaneous author self-archiving. But beyond that, no one knows.
If HHMI uses its internal OA mandate to ensure that its grantees work with PMC to validate the final form of the text, it could certainly improve the overall rate of OA and perhaps raise it to 100%. But if it's willing to exert itself in that way, it could deposit the papers itself or ensure that authors deposited them. Then it could save the money it's now paying Elsevier.
Under the HHMI deal, Cell Press will reduce its permissible embargo on OA archiving from 12 months to
zerosix. That's a real concession and gave Elsevier a bargaining chip in the negotiation. But Elsevier journals outside Cell Press already permitted immediate self-archiving and the HHMI deal will lengthen the embargo to six months (for HHMI-funded authors), moving the bargaining chip back to HHMI.
WT and Elsevier struck a deal last September for the same reasons that HHMI and Elsevier struck one now. WT agreed to pay Elsevier higher fees than HHMI is paying ($3,000 per Elsevier article and $5,000 per Cell Press article), but it got more for its money. WT got immediate OA, while HHMI is getting embargoed OA. WT got OA to the published edition, while HHMI is getting OA to an unedited edition. WT got a Creative Commons license or equivalent; while HHMI could use CC licenses on deposited, unedited manuscripts, the published editions will remain under Elsevier's copyright with no significant reuse rights.
The WT-Elsevier deal from September 2006
The CC-style licensing WT requires
Because WT wanted immediate OA to the published version, Elsevier bargained for, and won, compensation for the costs of peer review, as if it were providing gold OA. But the HHMI payments don't cover peer review, don't buy access to the published edition, and can't be construed as buying gold OA. HHMI is paying for green OA.
Elsevier's press release last September said that the WT payments would "help offset the cost of peer review and other publishing costs". The Elsevier-HHMI press release makes no similar claim. But perhaps we could justify the HHMI fees if we construed them as paying for peer review. That's a possibility, since all the articles in question have already been peer reviewed. But I just can't make this fit. Here's the problem: either the fees cover peer review or they don't. If they do, then HHMI really ought to get gold OA for its money, since peer review is the chief expense distinguishing journal publication from self-archiving. But gold OA ought to be immediate, not embargoed, and cover the published edition, not merely the final version of the author's peer-reviewed manuscript. Hence, if HHMI is paying for gold, it's not getting it. But if the fees don't cover peer review, then we're back where we were and HHMI is only paying for green OA. Either way, I have to conclude that HHMI was ripped off. Or if that's too negative, Elsevier got a fantastic deal.
By my count, HHMI is paying Elsevier for three specific concessions or services: Cell Press is shortening its embargo period; Elsevier is adding PMC to the list of eligible repositories for OA archiving; and Elsevier is undertaking the labor of depositing articles in PMC. Only the first has any bargaining significance.
In sum, what's wrong with this picture? HHMI is paying a fee for green OA. Despite its fee, HHMI is not getting immediate OA. Despite its fee, HHMI is not getting OA to the published version of the article. Elsevier (beyond Cell Press) is even lengthening its embargo period. Elsevier is permitting embargoed deposits in PMC, but it already permits free and unembargoed deposits in IRs. Actually making the deposits is a semi-automated clerical task that doesn't come close to justifying these fees.
Thomas Cech, President of HHMI (and a Nobel laureate in chemistry) told the Chronicle of Higher Education, "There seems to be an emerging consensus that this is a viable business proposition and to some extent a fair price, to the extent that one can really know what a fair price is." But he seems to have been thinking of the price for gold OA, which includes immediate access to the published edition. There is no precedent, let alone emerging consensus, for pricing green OA. Nor is there precedent or consensus for pricing OA to embargoed access to unedited manuscripts.
The same Chronicle article added, however, that "Mr. Cech acknowledged that the terms of the agreement may need revision in the not-too-distant future, given the pace of evolution in the publishing world...."
* Overall
I'm not saying that the distinction between green and gold OA is immutable. Of course the two types can be blended. One blend --the best for researchers-- would charge no fee to the depositor and provide immediate access to the published edition. Another blend --the worst for researchers-- would charge a fee, impose an embargo, and limit access to the final version of the author's peer-reviewed manuscript.
The problem with the HHMI-Elsevier deal is not that it blurs the distinction between green and gold but that it needlessly adopts the worst blend for researchers. The problem with the ACS deal is that it artificially clamps green and gold together and forces anyone wanting green to pay for gold to get it.
Elsevier is collecting fees for permitting embargoed green OA, and for making the deposits, when all its publishing costs are already covered by subscription fees. ACS is collecting fees for green OA, and for providing gold OA, when all its publishing costs are also already covered by subscription fees. (ACS has not yet said that it will reduce subscription prices in proportion to author uptake of the OA option.)
The ACS program will have low uptake. The price is high and very few authors who only want green OA will pay for gold OA. Elsevier will have uptake from each of its HHMI-funded authors. That's a larger class, but it's bounded and smaller than the class of HHMI-funded authors itself. I can't see that other funding agencies are likely to follow HHMI's lead, especially after studying the details of its deal. Even those who are tempted to pay publishers for their cooperation, or who have money to burn, will see that the Wellcome Trust is got much more for its money, and an outcome much more beneficial to research, than HHMI. But even if the direct damage is limited, these policies have let loose a dangerous new meme suggesting that publishers need compensation merely for permitting deposit in an OA repository, even if the OA edition is an unedited manuscript, even if the OA is embargoed, and even when all the publisher's costs are already covered by subscriptions. That's the real danger here.
Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI)
HHMI's plans to adopt an OA archiving mandate for HHMI-funded research (Nature, October 26, 2006).
HHMI and Elsevier Announce Public Access Agreement, the press release from the HHMI, March 8, 2007.
Mark Chillingworth, Elsevier agree Open Access terms with Howard Hughes Medical Institute, IWRblog, March 8, 2007.
Rick Weiss, Health Findings From Institute To Be Free Online, Washington Post, March 9, 2007.
Richard Monastersky, Hughes Institute's Deal With Elsevier Will Open Up Access to Its Researchers' Work, Chronicle of Higher Education, March 9, 2007.
Stevan Harnad, Double-Paying for Optional Gold OA Instead of Mandating Green OA While Subscriptions Are Still Paying for Publication: Trojan Folly, Open Access Archivangelism, March 13, 2007.
T. Scott Plutchak, Taking Time For Conversation, T. Scott, March 13, 2007.
Jim Till, Paying a fee for Green OA, Be accessible or be obscure, March 21, 2007.
Here's what happened, or what I noticed, since the last issue, emphasizing action and policy over scholarship and opinion. I put the most important items first, with double asterisks, and otherwise cluster them loosely by topic. Most of the time, I link to my blog postings, not to the sources themselves, because I only want to include one link and my blog postings usually bring many relevant links together.
** Twenty-two US federal government agencies formed an Interagency Working Group on Digital Data (IWGDD) and plan to deposit the data generated by their research grantees in a network of OA repositories. They are considering an OA mandate.
** Elias Zerhouni, Director of the NIH, told a Senate committee that the NIH public access policy should be strengthened from a request to a requirement.
** Two Research Councils of the UK merged, one requiring OA (PPARC) and one merely encouraging it (CCLRC). The new merged entity, Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), will require OA.
** The draft FP7 Grant Agreement requires grantees to submit electronic copies of their publications to the EC and permits the EC to disseminate them "in whatever form and...by whatever medium". If adopted, the EU would already have in place the heart of an OA mandate.
** CERN's Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment adopted the same statement on OA publishing adopted last month by CERN's ATLAS experiment.
** Two more CERN experiments endorsed the Statement on Open Access Publishing first promulgated by CERN's ATLAS experiment in February 2007 (making four total), and a fifth CERN experiment agreed to endorse gold OA in some form but is still working out the exact language.
** The European Research Council revealed (in its grant application guidelines) that it will pay publication fees at fee-based OA journals.
** When researchers funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) publish in Elsevier journals, HHMI agreed to pay Elsevier between $1,000 and $1,500 per article to deposit the peer-reviewed but unedited manuscripts in PubMed Central six months after publication.
** The Universit� de Li�ge adopted an OA mandate, thanks to its rector, Bernard Rentier.
** Ilmenau Technical University mandated that each book published by its university press must appear in an OA edition as well as a priced/printed edition.
** Eight non-profit organizations launched a Petition for Public Access to Publicly Funded Research in the United States, building on the European petition launched in January 2007. (Please sign it as an individual, encourage your institution to sign it as an institution, and spread the word!)
* Australia's Productivity Commission proposed an "author pays" OA mandate.
* Australia adopted repository-based research assessment, giving researchers one more strong incentive to deposit their research output in OA repositories.
* Nature Biotech announced a new policy, "recommending that raw data from proteomics and molecular-interaction experiments be deposited in a public [OA] database before manuscript submission."
* Maxine Clarke, Publishing Executive Editor at Nature, said that Nature would consider requiring and not merely recommending OA for multimedia data if there were a suitable OA repository supporting annotation and long-term preservation.
* Polimetrica released an Open Access Manifesto, apparently the first from a book publisher.
* CERN published its proposal to establish a Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics (SCOAP3) and presented it at a meeting in Geneva.
* The Catalan Physical Society signed the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge.
* A group of 18 public-interest advocacy organizations asked Congress to provide OA to the highly-regarded, publicly-funded, non-classified reports from the Congressional Research Service (CRS).
* The EC released the minutes of the second, October 2006 meeting of its High Level Expert Group on Digital Libraries. The members discussed the then-forthcoming EC Communication on OA (released February 2007) with the help of an invited expert speaking for the interests of publishers but none speaking for the interests of researchers.
* Brian Crawford, Chairman of the Executive Council of the AAP's Professional/Scholarly Publishing division, published his third explanation and defense of the hiring of a controversial PR firm to oppose national OA policies.
* The Association of American Publishers (AAP) publicly released its March 26 letter to Senator Tom Harkin, Chairman of the Senate subcommittee that funds the NIH, opposing Elias Zerhouni's conclusion that the NIH policy should be strengthened from a request to a requirement.
* "Economics" is a new open-access, open-assessment journal.
* Wiley-Blackwell launched a new peer-reviewed OA journal, Archives of Drug Information, apparently the first full OA (as opposed to hybrid OA) journal for either company.
* The Revue Electronique Francophone d'Informatique Graphique (REFIG) is a new OA journal of computer graphics.
* The International Journal of Internet Research Ethics (IJIRE) is a new peer-reviewed OA journal from the Center for Information Policy Research, School of Information Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
* The journal, Museum Anthropology, launched an OA supplement for book reviews, Museum Anthropology Review.
* Pers�e added the OA backfiles of two more journals to its collection: Bulletin de correspondance hell�nique (1877 -1889) and Dialogues d�histoire ancienne (1974 - ).
* The complete backfile of the journal, Folklore and Folk Music Archivist, is now OA, thanks to the hard work of Indiana University's Archives of Traditional Music.
* The complete backfile of the journal, Sino-Japanese Studies, is now OA, thanks to the hard work of Konrad Lawson.
* Hindawi launched the first 12 titles in a new "Research Letters" series of OA journals.
* Hindawi joined the group of co-sponsors of ChemRefer, the search engine for OA research in chemistry.
* Roman Chyla launched E-Journal, an ejournal management and publishing system running on Drupal, the open-source content management system.
* MIT canceled access to the digital library of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) when the SAE refused to lift its onerous DRM.
* John Vig, one of the candidates for president of the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), is campaigning on platform of embargoed OA for the IEEE journals.
* The University of Frankfurt Library launched the OA Virtual Library of Biology (Virtuelle Fachbibliothek Biologie).
* Metaweb launched its first product, Freebase, an OA database for semantically-tagged data.
* A new study of global warming from the European Science Foundation - Marine Board recommended international cooperation on an OA database.
* Open Context, the OA data repository for archaeology, is nearing its demo phase and started looking fieldwork datasets.
* Archaeoinformatics.org announced a project to build an OA infrastructure for data, texts, and images in archaeology.
* The Alexandria Archive Institute announced an Open Archaeology Prize for OA datasets.
* The Cultural Studies Open Access Archive (CSeARCH) issued a call for contributions.
* Thomson Scientific bought Unleashed Informatics (UI), including UI's BIND (Biomolecular Interaction Network Database), a database with TA and OA editions originally created with substantial funding from Canadian taxpayers. Thomson will continue the OA edition, at least for current registrants.
* The American Philological Association launched a $4 million fund-raising campaign, and plans to spend $2 million on a portal for digital (and apparently OA) "primary source materials".
* ScientificCommons, the OA repository harvester, started citation tracking.
* Eigenfactor, the free tool for citation analysis, increased the size of its index from 1,800 journals, all in social science, to all the 7,000+ journals listed in Thompson's Journal Citation Reports (JCR), including those in the natural sciences. It also indexes 110,000+ reference sources not listed in JCR, including reference books, newspapers, trade magazines, and software packages.
* The Center for Journal Ranking offered another free citation tracking service and journal quality measurement.
* OpenDOAR opened up its API for experiments, mash-ups, and creative new services.
* The two leading directories of OA repositories, ROAR and OpenDOAR, both took part in mash-ups with mapping services (ROAR with Google Earth, OpenDOAR with Google Maps) showing the worldwide locations of the listed repositories.
* Knowledge Exchange issued its recommendations on institutional repositories.
* dLIST, the OA repository for information science and technology, added a tell-a-colleague button.
* Index Data launched an Open Content service to integrate OA content with library catalogs, information portals, and metasearch systems.
* The AIRway project and OCLC Openly Informatics described a way to add IRs to linking services and allow institutions use link resolvers to point their users to OA copies of articles published in journals to which the institutions do not subscribe.
* Dorothea Salo launched an IR-Managers web site, where IR managers can talk shop; it includes a group blog, forum, and mailing list.
* SHERPA launched the UK Council of Research Repositories (UKCoRR) as a way for repository managers to share experiences and help one another.
* The EU-funded OLCOS (Open eLearning Content Observatory Services) released a report identifying the drivers and inhibitors of OA repositories for courseware and research.
* France added the content of Gallica to the OA European Digital Library.
* Co-Action Publishing is a new OA publisher and consultant with "real and virtual offices in Norway, Sweden and Denmark."
* The University of California Press launched FlashPoints, a new monograph series in literary studies in which each book will have an OA edition and a priced/printed edition.
* Springer announced that more than 29,000 of its books had been indexed by Google Book Search and Google visibility increases sales.
* The Bavarian State Library joined the Google Library project.
* Google is helping researchers exchange huge datasets (up to 120 terabytes) at no charge.
* Citizendium moved out of alpha into beta.
* A new study of author attitudes toward OA showed the continuing prevalence of long-answered fears and reservations.
* The Publishing Research Consortium released a condensed version of its November 2006 study, Self-Archiving and Journal Subscriptions: Co-existence or Competition?
* The University of California at Berkeley received a Mellon grant of more than $400,000 to study the changing nature of scholarly communication, including open access.
* Heather Morrison is offering a course on Open Access at the University of British Columbia School of Library, Archival, and Information Studies.
* Heather Morrison made an OA Google spreadsheet containing baseline data and periodic updates on the size of various OA directories and resources.
* The State of Utah gave $200,000 to Utah State University for OpenCourseWare in 2007-2008.
* Creative Commons is launching a new division called CC Learn, devoted to open educational resources.
* A non-profit with public funding launched CultureSource, an OA portal for Canadian courseware and teaching materials.
* Novell launched Novell Open Courseware, apparently the first open courseware from a for-profit company for its corporate training courses.
* The Metropolitan Museum of Art and ARTstor announced a deal permitting scholars to use Met images in ARTstor free of charge for scholarly purposes.
* Antonella De Robbio translated the SPARC Author Addendum into Italian.
* Students at Emory University are submitting a resolution in support of FRPAA to the Student Government Association for approval.
* France became the first country to provide OA to its UFO investigations.
* Faced with a lawsuit from Stanford Law School's Fair Use Project, James Joyce's grandson and literary executor backed off his aggressive position on copyright and agreed that a Joyce scholar had the right to quote from Joyce's published and unpublished writings in print and online.
Coming this month
Here are some important OA-related events coming up in April.
* April 14. Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC) launches its institutional repository, the IDRC Digital Library.
* April 18, 2007. SPARC Europe will announce the winner of the Second Award for Outstanding Achievements in Scholarly Communications, at the OAI5 conference at CERN.
* Sometime in April 2007. PhysMath Central will launch its first three OA journals.
--The first will launch at the American Physical Society meeting in Jacksonville, April 14-17, 2007.
* Notable conferences this month
Federal Research Public Access Act (a teleconference with Heather Joseph) (sponsored by Chemists Without Borders)
April 5, 2007 (a teleconference)
Workshop on Digital Libraries (OA is among the topics)
New Delhi, April 10-13, 2007
All Together Now: Scholarly Communication and the Power of Online Communities
Washington, D.C., April 12, 2007
The transformation of research communication (sponsored by ALPSP)
London, April 13, 2007
Open Educational Resources for lifelong learning (EduMedia Conference 2007) (OA is among the topics)
Salzburg, April 16-17, 2007
30th UKSG Annual Conference (OA is among the topics)
Warwick, April 16-18, 2007
International Scholarly Communications Conference: The transformation of research communication (sponsored by ALPSP) (OA is among the topics)
London, April 17, 2007
CERN workshop on Innovations in Scholarly Communication (OAI5)
Geneva, April 18-20, 2007
Beyond Limits: Building Open Access Collections (sponsored by the British Columbia Library Association)
[no web site yet]
Vancouver, April 19, 2007
Sharing of information and resources: cooperation of museums, archives and libraries in field of standardization
Riga, Latvia, April 20, 2007
Drexel University Libraries 2007 Scholarly Communication Symposium: Intellectual Property Rights
Philadelphia, April 20, 2007
Konferanse om Open Access og e-publisering (sponsored by Nordbib)
Elsinore, April 23-24, 2007
eInformation for eScience (hosted by UKeiG)
Birmingham, April 24, 2007
Sharing the Challenge of Managing Institutional Repositories
Southampton, April 24, 2007
Institutional repositories and Open Access for scholarly communication: a sensitization workshop
Maseru, Lesotho, April 24-26, 2007
Second Conference on Access to Knowledge (A2K2) (sponsored by the Yale Law School's Information Society Project)
New Haven, April 27-29, 2007
* Other OA-related conferences
* I've added 33 new conferences to my conference page since the last issue. In the next few days I'll delete the second asterisk marking them and the new entries will blend into the rest of the collection.
This is the SPARC Open Access Newsletter (ISSN 1546-7821), written by Peter Suber and published by SPARC. The views I express in this newsletter are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of SPARC or other sponsors.
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text:
Camera Trends for 2012: Wi-Fi Wrap Up
There is no doubt that digital cameras are one of the hottest electronic purchases that you will make. Every year we see an onslaught of new cameras wielding the latest technology. As we say good bye to 2012 let's look back at the biggest digital camera trend for the year: connectivity. Built in wireless is becoming a very popular feature among new cameras. What was once seen as futuristic and too expensive to obtain is now starting to be the norm. Check out our top three picks for connected cameras of 2012.
Arriving in mid-November, the Galaxy bounded onto the compact camera scene with a long list of specs and a plethora of features. Total connectivity is the name of the game. The Samsung Galaxy not only offers users access to the internet via Wi-Fi, but also with an optional data package. It comes fully equipped with a Quad-core processor and the full Android market. This camera has the functionality of a tablet with the build of a camera. The sleek design and stylish body make this camera a real looker. Not wanting to spend $500? The Samsung WB850F and WB150F also have Wi-Fi capabilities at half the price or less.
The NX1000 is Samsung's latest Interchangeable Lens Camera. At 20.3-megapixels, the Samsung NX1000 comes shipped with a 20-50mm f/3.5-5.6 lens. Samsung also bundles this camera with a removable flash. The ability to swap out a better lens or a more powerful flash makes this ILC camera a great option. A 3-inch LCD screen is bright and easy to read. It has an ISO range of 100-12800, which is quite nice for a camera of this class. Equipped with Wi-Fi capabilities, "Smart Link" allows the user to sync the NX1000 and transfer your files wirelessly.
Canon has brought Wi-Fi to the compact camera line for less than $200. Small and sleek, the camera has a multitude of creative features. It has the ability to identify up to 58 different scenes and select the best photographic option. The camera comes packed with 16.1-megapixels and a lens that is a 24-120mm equivalent. The Canon 320 HS also has a 3.2-inch LCD touchscreen. Designed for the casual photographer who likes the auto setting, the 320 HS is a capable Point and Shoot that can handle itself in a multitude of situations with grace and speed.
We believe this is just the start of the "Connected Camera." With CES just around the corner, we look forward to reviewing more cameras with Wi-Fi capabilities. Check back in to find out what these new cameras have to offer.
Don't have a Wi-Fi camera? Some cameras accept Wi-Fi SD cards. These cards use built-in Wi-Fi to make your camera function with wireless capabilities.


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30 second introductory screencast
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CompositeTable is a custom SWT grid control that:
Please note: The CompositeTable widget is still under active development. The code is made available in a BETA state. Users should expect changes in future versions.
Having said this, CompositeTable is currently successfully deployed in a five million line mission-critical enterprise RCP application.
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text: Why is the Earth so restless? What causes the ground to shake violently, volcanoes to explode, and great mountain ranges to rise to incredible heights? National Geographic takes viewers on the visual ride of their lives, introducing them to our Amazing Planet! Hold on tight to our time-machine as we propel you backwards and forwards through the geological history of a little rock we call home - Earth.


text:
Nine out of every 100 abused kids get abused again when they're put in foster care
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The report finds too many abused children are being abused again in state custody. Even DCF says it can do better.
The state audit shows nine out of every 100 abused kids get abused again when they're put in foster care. The report says the numbers of so-called "re-abuse cases" exceed the state's own goal of no more than seven percent, and are well above the national standard of six percent.
Karen Gievers is an attorney for foster children and a frequent critic of Florida's Department of Children and Families.
"If this happened while the child was still in the parents' home the state would swoop in and say you've proven that you're not a fit parent. The state of Florida is not a fit parent," says Karen Gievers.
The state Department of Children and Families says it is working on their abuse problem and the numbers are improving. Still, DCF agrees even one child re-abused is too many.
Spokesman Bill Spann says better training these days and closer supervision of private contractors have brought the re-abuse numbers down to eight out of every 100 kids.
"This is something that, as I said, we have to concentrate on day in and day out because after all we have to take care of the children and those who are entrusted to our care and that is a large responsibility and one that we take very seriously," says DCF spokesman Bill Spain.
Jeb Bush believes DCF is on the right path.
"We've doubled the money for our child welfare system, we've accelerated the number of children getting out of foster care, we've increased adoptions. We're paying our counselors more, we're using technology better," says Gov. Jeb Bush.
But critics argue until every child is safe din state care, DCF is still not doing its job. DCF hopes it can do a better job of preventing "re-abuse" of children once a long-overdue computer system called "home safenet" is fully functional.


text:
Happy Anniversary to Us!!
>> Thursday, March 31, 2011
Its so hard to believe that a year (and 5 days) has gone by since we got hitched, lol. Its been such a great year and I don't care what anyone says, a marriage is not just a piece of paper, it means so much more than that. I think our relationship has taken on a whole new life since getting married and I love the path that we are on. We went to Savannah and had a fabulous time, its so gorgeous there I didn't want to come home. We saw one couple taking e-pics on the riverfront, one couple taking e-pics in the beautiful Forsyth Park, a gorgeous bride taking bridal portraits (her dress was fabulous), and two weddings, love was most definitely in the air. We had some fabulous dinners and was all over Savannah, I love the little shops. I chickened out on the ghost hunting tour at the Sorrell-Weed house, I just couldn't do it, lol. My gorgeous hubby on the River Front (he had on his new Armani sunglasses and D&G Watch that I got him for our anniversary): We did a lot of self portraits I was to afraid to ask someone to take a picture with my favorite camera! Cute little seagull...he wasn't shy at all! Didn't get to eat here but I heard its yummy! Forsyth Park, so gorgeous! We ventured off to Tybee Isand, it was a beautiful day and I once again followed the birds around, lol. Fort Pulaski:
Read more...


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Summary and Keywords
Energy systems have played a significant role in U.S. history; some scholars claim that they have determined a number of other developments. From the colonial period to the present, Americans have shifted from depending largely on wood and their own bodies, as well as the labor of draft animals; to harnessing water power; to building steam engines; to extracting fossil fuels—first coal and then oil; to distributing electrical power through a grid. Each shift has been accompanied by a number of other striking changes, especially in the modern period associated with fossil fuels. By the late 19th century, in part thanks to new energy systems, Americans were embracing industrialization, urbanization, consumerism, and, in a common contemporary phrase, "the annihilation of space and time." Today, in the era of climate change, the focus tends to be on the production or supply side of energy systems, but a historical perspective reminds us to consider the consumption or demand side as well. Just as important as the striking of oil in Beaumont, Texas, in 1901, was the development of new assumptions about how much energy people needed to sustain their lives and how much work they could be expected to do. Clearly, Americans are still grappling with the question of whether their society's heavy investment in coal- and petroleum-based energy systems has been worthwhile.
Keywords: work, climate, modernity, commodification, wood, water, steam, coal, oil, electricity, culture, ethics, consumption, production, supply and demand, determinism
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text:
"Patient has history of Alzheimer's disease. Currently has obvious memory deficits. Will consult neurology to see if they can find a cause for his memory loss."
Monday, July 15, 2013
Thank you for this interesting consult
"Patient has history of Alzheimer's disease. Currently has obvious memory deficits. Will consult neurology to see if they can find a cause for his memory loss."
12 comments:
- Cape Cod Step-Mom said...
I beat you can figure it out! We have faith in you.
- July 15, 2013 at 7:04 AM
It would really be impressive if could treat it...
- July 15, 2013 at 10:07 AM
Just don't forget to check the thyroid profile, do a short synacthen test, check electrolytes, check inflammatory markers, do a CT brain +/- MRI and an MMSE.
Hopefully you'll find a cause for his confusion.
Also, wonder what new subtype of Alzheimer's that the patient had that regresses...
- July 15, 2013 at 10:08 AM
I think the patient wrote the note.
- July 15, 2013 at 10:08 AM
- Packer said...
Just has to know.
- July 15, 2013 at 11:33 AM
It's July, perhaps it's a new resident?
- July 15, 2013 at 1:33 PM
- Ms. Donna said...
Yep. Note by new resident should have finished "ask for neurology consult."
IF the Grumpy one had a cure for AZ, he would not be peddling his blog on Kindle.
- July 15, 2013 at 3:37 PM
This made me want to laugh and cry at the same time. Over half the health care professionals I came into contact with while dealing with my father's Alzheimer's seemed to be rather clueless. Even though I told them in advance that my father had severe Alzheimer's, they would still ask questions such as, "Have you noticed your father is confused?" "Has he seen a neurologist to help with the memory loss?" Duh... Then I would give my 2-minute education on Alzheimer's, which was usually ignored.
This is why a fair share of my time and money goes to Alzheimer's awareness and research, and I wish it could also go toward educating all health care professionals on at least the basics of this heartbreaking disease.
Very apt wv: veryflaw
- July 15, 2013 at 5:31 PM
- Patti Cadwallader said...
Whoever wrote that needs to go back to school. I can't believe there is no "warning warning" post against using that doctor/nurse.
- July 15, 2013 at 6:01 PM
Doctor or nurse?
- July 15, 2013 at 6:45 PM
- Professor P. said...
Methinks whoever wrote that note might have Alzheimer's himself.
My mom died of Alzheimer's. Her meds got out of whack, and she was admitted to the local hospital's psych ward. They told us they were going to teach her the tasks of daily living, and she would be expected to do her own laundry. At the time, she couldn't speak, didn't recognize her family, and would not eat her food because the staff didn't remove the covers from the tray and she didn't recognize the tray as food.
How can healthcare professionals be so clueless about such a common disease?
- July 15, 2013 at 11:04 PM
- Eileen said...
Been discussing the Dunning–Kruger effect - sounds relevant!
- July 16, 2013 at 12:19 PM


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60th anniversary of the first BBC TV weather bulletin
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As noted in the iMedicalApps blog:
Statistics from the 2011 National Diabetes Fact Sheet (link here) show that the prevalence of diabetes in the U.S. is 8.3% or 25.8 million people. In 2007, the total cost of diagnosed diabetes in the U.S. alone reached $174 billion. It is clear that diabetes is a major healthcare issue in modern medicine. On the basis of this, it is important that healthcare professionals are well informed about diabetes and its potential complications as it will have a significant impact on future practice.
Johns Hopkins and Skyscape have teamed up to offer the POC-IT Guide to Diabetes for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, part of a series of apps that also include HIV and antibiotic guides. The app itself is free, but to use the guides requires a paid subscription to the online Johns Hopkins Guides service, which iMedicalApps reports as "usually $39.95."
"The Diabetes Guide is designed to assist clinicians by distilling complex material into need-to-know information, easily accessible for rapid viewing and which can be frequently updated" (from the review). The information resides on your mobile device, so it is available whether or not you have an Internet connection. The iMedicalApps review goes into great detail about the features of this app, concluding that The Diabetes Guide is a "complete, easy to use mobile application that covers the majority of the clinical aspects and associated complications in great depth."
Do you have access to this app? If so, how useful and user-friendly do you find it?


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Jircniv Rune Farlord El Nix (Character)ジルクニフ・ルーン・ファーロード・エル=ニクス
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- Eye ColourPurple
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From your mailbox to your computer to your mobile devices, Valpak has the coupons to help you save big. Top savings searches: Restaurants, Automotive, Groceries, Personal Care, Home and Office, General Services, Professional Services, Entertainment and Travel, Health and Medical, Shops, Dental, Pet Care, Free Pizza, Haircut, Carpet Cleaning, Dry Cleaning, Buffet, Tire, and Fitness. Also save with our Promo Codes or Coupon Codes.
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First, it's so good to have WAMC back doing regular programming. Congratulations all.
Many stations try to give us "news you can use," by which they mean the things we can do for ourselves. But the things that really matter are the things that require our cooperation.
If we look at our major health threats, I think most people would name heart disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity. I sympathize with that position. With the help or advice of my doctors I'm keeping diabetes and my heart under control, partly by getting closer to what I weighed in college. So now we have a national health care system. Got those licked. Read the rest of this entry »


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20.13 - Communications and/or Computers - Personal Use
Last updated July 2, 2008
A. General. It is the policy of the University of Idaho that the use of university owned communication devices and services purchased with university funds and owned by the university is for official university business. This policy applies to voice and data communication devices and services—see definitions below. Department heads and persons in equivalent positions are responsible for the business and financial operations of their unit, including the development and implementation of appropriate operating procedures and internal controls. Oversight of communication devices and services fall within that realm of responsibility. Department heads are responsible for ensuring accountability for and compliance with these policies and procedures.
B. Definitions.
B-1. Communication Devices and Services: This refers to any type of communication device or service, such as cell phones, personal digital assistants (PDA's), satellite phones, personal laptops, Blackberry devices, fax machines, two way radios, pagers, computers, and land line telephones or any other communication device. Services include but are not limited to email, text messaging, Internet access, cellular services, include local and long distance traditional telephone services, and network connectivity.
B-2. Personally Owned Communication Devices and Services. These are communication devices purchased with other than university funds (university funds include grant funds and gift funds) and owned by an individual. Common personally owned communication devices and services include cell phones, personal digital assistants (PDA's), computers, and Blackberries, with the related services of email, text messaging, Internet access, and cellular service.
B-3. University Owned Communication Devices and Services. These are communication devices purchased with university funds and owned by the university. These devices generally are used on campus and, subject to applicable use-policies, are to be used for university-related business. They are often connected to or dependent on the wired infrastructure or are located in university buildings. Common university owned devices and services include fax machines, two way radios, satellite phones, pagers, computers, and land line telephones, with the related services of local and long distance services, network connectivity, and email.
C. Policy. The university provides university owned communication devices and services that are necessary for conducting university business operations, research, and academic activities. The decision of which device(s) to provide is at the discretion of the appropriate division or department supervisor. Use of university owned communication devices must comply with Idaho law and university policies. In general, the university does not provide mobile communication devices. This includes cellular phones and Blackberry devices. University owned communications devices may not be used for commercial or profit-making purposes or political purposes, or for personal use where such use incurs a cost to the university and is not academically related.
D. Procedures.
D-1. Personally Owned Communication Devices and Services–Frequent Use for University Purposes. Employees whose job duties require the frequent use of mobile communication devices or communications services for university business will be given a taxable allowance to compensate for the business use of a personally-owned mobile communications device and/or service. Employees will be responsible for contracting for services, purchasing the equipment, and all payments of their personal contracts with their communication service provider.
D-2. Review of Use of Personally Owned Communication Devices and Services for University purposes:
D-2.a. Application for Allowance: In order for an employee to receive an allowance for the use of their communication device or service for university purposes, the employee must justify to their department head that there are business requirements that necessitate the frequent use of the device(s) to perform university business, and that such business cannot be accommodated by the use of university-owned communication devices and services. A completed and signed reimbursement allowance approval form will be kept in the employee's departmental personnel file. Download the approval form.
D-2.b. Setting the Amount of the Allowance: Once a year, employees will work with their supervisors to determine the appropriate amount of the allowance, based upon a representative sample of documented university device usage, service costs, or on other quantifiable, auditable criteria, such as usage comparisons with other employees of the same job class or duties. The agreed upon allowance amount will be included as a taxable line item on the employee's paycheck. Documentation supporting the amount of the allowance shall be included in the employee's departmental personnel file. The allowance will be calculated for a twelve (12) month period after which time it will lapse. To continue the allowance for another twelve months the employee and supervisor must reevaluate the amount of the allowance and make adjustments as needed. This allowance is not an entitlement, nor is it an increase in pay. The university reserves the right to rescind this allowance at any time.
D-3. Personally Owned Communication Devices and Services – Infrequent Use for University Purposes. Employees who infrequently use their personally owned communication devices or services for university purposes may request reimbursement from the university for such use through the Accounts Payable Department.
D-4. Reimbursement for Use of Personally Owned Communication Devices or Services. Employees seeking reimbursement for use of personally owned communication devices or services pursuant to D-3, must submit their original invoices with itemized call detail and documentation substantiating university business use for departmental approval within two months of the usage. All reimbursement requests must occur during the same fiscal year as the usage occurred. Departments shall submit an approved claim voucher or if on travel status, the employee's travel expense claim form to Accounts Payable for reimbursement to the employee. For university calls made within a personal "prepaid minute plan", calculate reimbursement as follows: Divide the monthly cost of the plan by the number of minutes allowed then multiply that amount by the number of minutes used for university business calls. Documentation substantiating university business use must include the following:
- The cost of the usage
- The time of the usage
- The purpose of the usage
- The business relationship of the calling parties
D-5. University Owned Communication Devices and Services - Use. Telephones, fax machines, radios, computers, etc. are provided by the university to enable employees to perform critical business functions of the University of Idaho and support the role and mission. In no case will the university provide Internet connectivity or other data services for personally owned computers.
D-6. University Owned Mobile Communication Devices and Services – Cellular Phones. In general, the university will not own cellular phones or other mobile communications devices or carry mobile communications device contracts for permanent assignment to individual employees. University departments, with the approval of the department head, may obtain a cellular phone or other mobile communication device to be associated with the department. These university owned communication devices shall have a department or functional listing in the university directory. A university department may assign a university owned mobile communication device to an employee when it is demonstrated that an employee cannot perform his or her duties without a cellular and/or wireless communication device or that improved performance ensuing from such communication will justify the investment.
D-7. Review of University-Owned Mobile Communication Device Charges. All university owned mobile communication device usage must be exclusively for university business, be managed and maintained by the department, involve no personal use, and be documented as follows (IRS Code 26 Section 274(d)):
- The cost of the usage
- The time of the usage
- The purpose of the usage
- The business relationship of the parties involved
Department heads are responsible for insuring that all usage is managed in accordance with IRS rules.
D-8. Personal Long-Distance Telephone, Calling Cards, or Fax Calls on University-Owned Communication Devices. Employees may not use university owned communication devices to make long-distance calls for personal or other non-university purposes. This prohibition includes using UI purchased calling cards for personal use. Long-distance calls other than those for official UI business are to be charged to home telephones, personal telephone calling cards, to the called party, or to another non-university source.
D-9. Review of Long-Distance Telephone Charges on University Owned Communication Devices. All long-distance telephone charges appearing on monthly university ITS Telephone Services billing statements require timely review. This includes analysis of monthly invoices and questioning of any personal or large and unusual charges. ITS Telephone Services departmental long-distance calling detail records are available on the web.
Inquiries related to questioned charges should be directed to Telephone Services at (208) 885-5800 via email. Charges identified as personal or otherwise unauthorized are to be reimbursed by the caller.
D-10. University Review (Audit) of Use of University Owned Communication Devices - Cell Phone and Long-Distance Charges. To ensure compliance with the IRS Accountable Plan Rules, university and Regents policies, each employee using a university-owned cell phone and/or using office long-distance call capability is subject to periodic review by the responsible department head and/or Accounts Payable or Auditing Services. This includes review of monthly invoices and questioning of any large or unusual charges. Corrective action must be taken when inappropriate use of cell phone service is identified, which includes mandatory reimbursement of inappropriate charges, and may also include termination of the cell phone contract and employee disciplinary action, up to and including dismissal.
D-11. Safety and Usage of Any Mobile Communication Device: Employees are responsible for operating vehicles and potentially hazardous equipment in a safe and prudent manner. Employees are strongly discouraged from using a cell phone or other mobile communication device while driving during working hours for any purpose. In an emergency situation, employees should pull over and stop the vehicle or use a hands free mobile communication device. Mobile communication device use is not allowed while driving university vehicles or while driving in jurisdictions where such use is prohibited by law.
D-12. Transition from University Owned Mobile Communication Devices and Services to Personally Owned Communication Devices and Services. As of the date of this policy, the university has determined that there is no surplus value in existing university owned mobile communication devices. For those employees who have provided justification to their supervisors for the use of such devices and services and who are currently using university owned devices and services, the department may elect to abandon those devices and turn over possession to the employee. This abandonment applies only to handheld mobile communication devices. It does not include laptops, notebook computers, etc. If you have a question about whether a particular device is included in this abandonment, please contact Purchasing Services (885-6116). Departments are encouraged to transition employees off of university owned service plans as soon as possible. All university owned mobile communication device use must be accounted for and documented as outlined herein.


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Beck Diefenbach / Reuters file
Gay marriage advocates cheer during a rally outside a federal courthouse in San Francisco moments before hearing that judges had struck down Proposition 8, which bans same-sex marriage, on Feb. 7, 2012.
Backers of California's Proposition 8, intended to ban same-sex marriage in the state, asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday to take up their appeal after two lower federal courts found the measure unconstitutional.
The justices now face two gay rights issues: the Prop 8 appeal and two challenges to the federal Defense of Marriage Act.
Voters in California approved Prop 8 in 2008, less than six months after the state's Supreme Court approved same-sex marriage. The measure was immediately challenged.
A federal judge declared it unconstitutional in 2010, and a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 in February that the ban discriminated against gays and lesbians. The full circuit declined to hear the appeal from Prop 8 supporters, though its ruling remains on hold until all legal avenues have been exhausted.
In urging the Supreme Court to hear their appeal, backers of the measure – which includes that Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal ministry -- said the nation was in the midst of a public debate about "the profoundly important question" of "whether the ancient and vital institution of marriage should be fundamentally redefined to include same-sex couples."
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Proponents of Prop 8 stepped in to lead the court battle after California officials concluded the ban was unconstitutional and declined to defend it.
The federal appeals court wrongly concluded, the Prop 8 backers said in their petition Tuesday, that because California's domestic partnership law already gave same-sex couples the same legal rights that married couples have, all the measure did was take away their legal right to get marriage licenses.
Such a distinction, the appeals court determined, had no effect other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians. The court also found that Prop 8 unconstitutionally took away a fundamental right that the state had previously guaranteed.
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"This reasoning calls into immediate question the marriage laws of Hawaii, Nevada, and Oregon, which extend to same-sex couples the incidents but not the designation of marriage," lawyers for the Prop 8 supporters argued in their Supreme Court filing.
The appeals court ruling "threatens to short-circuit further democratic deliberation regarding official recognition of same-sex marriage," they said.
Related stories:
- Appeals court: Denying federal benefits to same-sex couples is unconstitutional
- Conservatives target Republicans who back gay marriage
- Same-sex couple fights to stop deportation, gay marriage ban
- Obama: 'I think same-sex couples should be able to get married'
Separately, both the Obama administration and House Republicans are urging the Supreme Court to decide the constitutionality of a provision in the federal Defense of Marriage Act, passed in 1996 and signed into law by former President Bill Clinton.
DOMA, as the law is known, prevents the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriage -- even in states where it is legal -- thereby denying various benefits given to heterosexual couples.
Survey: Partisan divide over gay marriage widens
The Obama administration had stopped defending the law, concluding it was unconstitutional. It recently asked the Supreme Court to take up two of the DOMA cases – one originating in Massachusetts, the other in California -- after appeals courts struck the law down.
Neither case sought for justices to decide the fundamental question of whether the Constitution guarantees same-sex couples the right to marry. No Supreme Court action on whether to take up any of the cases, or all of them, is expected until the fall.
No same-sex marriages have been performed in California since Prop 8 was passed by voters.
Equality California, a LGBT advocacy group, said there was no need for the Supreme Court to review the case because the decision to strike down Prop 8 "rested on solid constitutional principles."
"Two federal courts in this case have affirmed what we know to be true -- that Proposition 8 seriously infringes on the guarantee of equal protection and serves no legitimate state interest," the group's spokeswoman, Rebekah Orr, said in an email. "We look forward to a day in the near future when all loving, committed couples will have the freedom to commit their lives to one another in marriage and enjoy the security and protection that only marriage can provide."
NBC News' Miranda Leitsinger contributed to this report.
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Kepler's is now open Tuesday-Friday 10am-6pm, Saturday and Sunday 10am-5pm. Please read about our reopening and plaza pickup service.
Kepler's is now open Tuesday-Friday 10am-6pm, Saturday and Sunday 10am-5pm. Please read about our reopening and plaza pickup service.
From Ann Packer, author of the New York Times best-selling novels The Dive from Clausen's Pier and Songs Without Words, a collection of burnished, emotionally searing stories, framed by two unforgettable linked narratives that express the transformation of a single family over the course of a lifetime.
A wife struggles to make sense of her husband's sudden disappearance. A mother mourns her teenage son through the music collection he left behind. A woman shepherds her estranged parents through her brother's wedding and reflects on the year her family collapsed. A young man comes to grips with the joy—and vulnerability—of fatherhood. And, in the masterly opening novella, two teenagers from very different families forge a sustaining friendship, only to discover the disruptive and unsettling power of sex.
Ann Packer is one of our most talented archivists of family life, with its hidden crevasses and unforeseeable perils, and in these stories she explores the moral predicaments that define our social and emotional lives, the frailty of ordinary grace, and the ways in which we are shattered and remade by loss. With Swim Back to Me, she delivers shimmering psychological precision, unfailing intelligence, and page-turning drama: her most enticing work yet.
Praise for Ann Packer's Swim Back to Me
"As funny as it is sad. . . . Full of revelations . . . near perfection. . . . [A] lovely, masterful collection."
—Mameve Medwed, Boston Globe
"Most readers know Ann Packer from her best-selling debut novel. Swim Back to Me is even better, richer, more insightful. Packer can break your heart—and she can mend it, too. Easing readers in with recognizable characters facing familiar situations . . . she then injects a detail that makes us see the situations in a whole new light. . . . This fine work [is] surprising and absolutely true."
—Karen Holt, O, The Oprah Magazine
"Astute. . . . Anyone intrigued by the ways we both fail and save one another will find ample food for thought here."
—Kim Hubbard, People
"Ann Packer has a talent for creating authentic, absorbing characters—and it's on full display in Swim Back to Me.'
—Ladies' Home Journal
"[Packer] illuminates the instant, in the darkest hour of grief, when the heart opens wider than ever before—and shows us a new way of being."
—Pam Houston, More
"A novella and five stories limn with acuity and empathy the intricate negotiations and painful losses of family life. . . . [Packer's] prose is deceptively simple, her insights always complex. . . . Touching, tender and true. . . . As rich and satisfying as Packer's two fine novels."
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"[A] sterling collection. . . . Packer's talents are evident. . . . Packer presents complex human relationships with unsentimental compassion."
—Publishers Weekly
"Stunning. . . . Well-crafted and engaging. . . . These California stories are expansive and open-ended. It's hard to let them go."
—Sue Russell, Library Journal
Praise for Songs Without Words
"Packer's voice [has] extraordinary authority . . . Compassionate, rich in solace."
—Liesl Schillinger, The New York Times Book Review
"Engrossing, forgiving and quietly wise, Songs Without Words never makes a false step as Packer keeps both the pages and her readers' minds turning until the very end."
—Jill Smolowe, People
"As in The Dive from Clausen's Pier, Packer makes the ripples from one act so involving you can't pull away."
—Good Housekeeping
Praise for The Dive from Clausen's Pier
"Ann Packer knows just how to make a story build: the novel reveals a sure sense of pace and pitch, a brilliant ear for character . . . She has brought to intractable questions the energy of a humane novel that possesses, at its center, a searching emotional generosity."
—Rob Nixon, The New York Times Book Review
"An intricately detailed, deeply felt, compelling and ultimately surprising portrait of a young woman . . . [whose] struggles with the demands of loyalty are moving and realistic . . . [A] wonderfully satisfying novel."
—Jane Ciabattari, San Francisco Chronicle
"The trick to what Ms. Packer does lies in the utterly lifelike quality of her book's everyday detail, and the secret, graceful ways in which that detail becomes revealing. . . . Her ear for dialogue is unerring."
—Janet Maslin, The New York Times


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Living with multiple sclerosis doesn't just mean living with MS, living with its symptoms and with the side-effects of disease modifying drugs; living with MS also means coping with the things that happen to our bodies because of MS.
I mentioned my musculoskeletal complaints in our last "How's your MS Today?" blog. These have been caused by poor gait caused by the way MS has weakened my left leg. It might also be partly caused by the right hip replacement (due to steroid treatment for MS), but MS defiantly has a hand in it. I throw my leg out, use my hip to lift the leg and I'm sure the days I try to get away without a cane I really muck things up.
I know that I am not alone in these ills as my MS team shakes their head knowingly when I issue such complaints (they've even referred me to massage and chiropractic care in the past). I also know, from reading your comments over the years, that there are several other "MS-related" concerns and I thought it high time we gave them some blog space.
Dental Issues: In the past few months, I've noted a few people talking about difficulty in brushing and flossing. It stands to reason that if you A) can't hold for weakness, B) can't manipulate for fine-motor issues or, C) can't remember for cog-fog, brushing your teeth may be difficult and lead to a myriad of problems of the mouth.
Pressure Sores: If a person is relegated to one position (sitting, lying, etc), pressure sores can develop on areas of the body where weigh rests. These lesions of the skin – our body's first defense against invaders – can allow bacteria into our compromised system and cause great havoc.
UTI: Multiple Sclerosis doesn't case urinary tract infections. The inability to empty, retention of urine, self-cathing and other factors are the root of these evils. They must, however, be listed as we wouldn't likely be contending with them (at least as much) were it not for MS.
There must be plenty of others; broken bones & bruises from falls, cuts from vision problems, burns, car accidents, and the list must go on and on…
So, it's now up to you. Time to think about the secondary and tertiary effects MS has had on our lives. We've read it loads of times; how someone might not have even thought of something as "MS-Related" until they really think about it.
What might be some of these issues that you've learned to live with?
Wishing you and your family the best of health.
You can also follow me via our Life With MS Facebook page, on Twitter, and in our group on MS Connection.org. Also, check out our bi-monthly MS blog for the United Kingdom, and don't forget to check out TrevisLGleason.com
Important: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and not Everyday Health.